Providence event crosses musical chairs, puzzles and pie to piece together friendships

PROVIDENCE – Let’s start with two questions. One, do you like puzzles? And two, have you ever wanted to make more friends that live in the same city as you?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, you may want to check out the Puzzical Chairs and Pie event on Sunday, July 30, at the Innovation District Park, near the Providence River Pedestrian Bridge.

The free event is a cross between speed-dating and musical chairs, except nobody is ever out and rather than scoping out the person across from you as a potential partner, all you have to do is assemble a 24-piece puzzle with them for five minutes. Way less pressure.

And, there’s a free pocket pie from Scialo's County Bakery in Seekonk for the first 100 people who sign up for the event.

“You get to know people from all walks of life, people you probably wouldn’t normally meet, and do sort of a deep immersion into art you may not normally see,” said Seekonk artist Sarah Jane Lapp, who organizes these events alongside producer Rani MacNeal.

What to expect at a Puzzical Chairs and Pie event?

At the event, café tables are set up throughout the park with puzzle bags set out on each of them. Musicians – for the Providence event it will be the Vox Hunters – play a song while you puzzle with a partner you’ve been randomly paired with.

There’s a small image of what the puzzle looks like, but it’s so small that you’re really “puzzling blind,” as Lapp put it, with the art, which she creates, “appearing before your eyes.”

When the song ends, everything resets. New partner. New puzzle. New song.

“People have these extraordinarily deep conversations as they puzzle, sort of like falling in love for five minutes at a time,” Lapp said. “What I found interesting is that both extroverts have introverts seem to be able to handle the five-minute increment.”

If people want to sit on the side and watch or even puzzle by themselves, Lapp said that is an option. The age range for the event, she said, is “5 to 85,” with people coming by themselves, with a friend or as a family.

What’s the philosophy behind the event?

For the event organizers, puzzles are a gateway into bigger ideas about mental health, connection, what it means to matter and even democracy.

Placing a puzzle piece releases dopamine in the brain, Lapp said.

“They're getting a neurochemical cocktail,” she said. “It also serves as a kind of safe space to build something together. I think when you're working on something larger than yourself, you also experience magic … of being a part of something bigger than yourself.”

There’s a quote, one she said she’s spent years thinking about, from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, “Everyone carries with them at least one and probably many pieces to someone else’s puzzle. Sometimes they know it. Sometimes they don’t.”

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Maybe the person you puzzle with at a Puzzical Chairs and Pie will be an important piece of your puzzle, or perhaps just a moment of joy. Or maybe it will remind you of your place in democracy and the importance of your contributions.

“For us, it’s a metaphor for inclusive democracy,” Lapp said. “Every person's voice is essential, and we kind of want that message – that people feel like they matter and that their piece of the puzzle matters both literally and metaphorically – to be the takeaway.”

When is Puzzical Chairs and Pie?

Puzzical Chairs will be Sunday, July 30, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Innovation District Park, site of the Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Bridge. The rain date is Sunday, Aug. 6.

Free tickets are available at Eventbrite.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Try Puzzical Chairs and Pie on Providence River Pedestrian Bridge